I Thee Wed – Linda Ford

Daylight was almost gone. If she was injured⁠— He must find her before it got too dark to see. And if she wasn’t able to call out⁠— He couldn’t finish the thought. OceanofPDF.com Chapter Seven old, anxious shivers raced up and down Amelia’s spine. Both Kat and Zach were missing.

Zach was likely safe, but Kat? Was she hurt? Was she hiding? Avoiding them? Amelia had seen enough of the girl and her emotional outbursts to think it possible. Poppy threw her head back and cried. “Bedtime for you, little one.” Amelia took the baby upstairs, rocked her, and sang to her until she fell asleep. She settled her on the mat, then hurried back downstairs. A sliver of orange and pink clung to the mountains in the west.

What light there was would soon fade from the sky. She couldn’t stay here, doing nothing but worrying and praying. “Gil, can you stay with Pa? Don’t let him go outside? And listen for Poppy though she won’t likely waken.” “Why? Where’re you going?” “To look for Kat. Maybe she’s closer to home and unable to call out.” Gil rocked his head back and forth. “It’ll soon be dark.” “I won’t go far, but I have an idea where she could be. Of course, I could be wrong.” “Where might that be, if ya don’t mind me askin’?”

“You know that place where your ma and Zach’s ma sat among the flowers. I’m going to look there.” Gil continued to look resistant. “If’n she’s there, why doesn’t she come home?” “I don’t know. And there’s nothing to say she’s there. Can you watch Pa?” The older man sat at the table, paging through a book as if he knew he should be able to read it but couldn’t—poor man.

“I’ll stay. Now don’t you be long.” “Not a moment longer than I must.” Her shoes crunched the dry grass as she trotted toward the hill she had in mind. Wasn’t it possible that the place held special memories for Kat even as it did for Zach? Though the only reasonable explanation for why the girl hadn’t come home was that something had happened.

Fallen and knocked herself out? Or had Sobel found her out there and⁠— No, she wouldn’t go down that twisted trail. God in heaven, keep her safe and help us find her. She crested the hill. The flowers had tucked themselves into bed, hiding their colors. Dusk filled the hollow.

melia Pressly shook off the dust of three days traveling on the stagecoach. No doubt she appeared as weary as she felt. Travel by train had been challenging, but it proved to be sheer luxury compared to bouncing over the mountain trail in the stagecoach she and her charge recently shared with others. Two men who smelled like something dead were the worst of her companions.

The odor lingered in her nostrils. She didn’t dare sniff her arms to see if it had embedded into her clothes. Leaving her trunk and crate at the station, she hitched two-year-old Poppy higher on her hip and confronted the brave false front of the store in Golden Valley. Hopefully, she’d put on an equally brave false front. Smoothing her furrowed brows, she took a deep breath to calm herself and stepped into the Jarvis Mercantile Store.

She blinked as her eyes adjusted to the dimmer, cooler interior. Scents—familiar and strange—surrounded her. Jute, dill pickles, and coal oil were the first she recognized, followed by the fainter odor of animals, which might have accompanied her indoors from her long journey. This was the smell of the West. The place where she’d find security for both herself and Poppy. Her gaze lit on the tall man leaning against the counter, speaking to the storekeeper who stood with his back to shelves full of canned goods and red syrup tins.

The storekeeper appeared to be about the age her father would have been by now. His kindly face strengthened her faltering courage. He turned to her. “Welcome to Golden Valley. I’m Mr. Jarvis.” She drank in the kindness in his eyes and the welcome in his smile. But it was the other person whom she sought. Zach Taggerty. His letters had given her enough information to recognize the man she’d come to marry. If I had to describe myself, I’d say my jaw is often set too tight.

I am taller than most. Could add a few pounds to my body, but I have always been too thin, even though Ma tried hard to fatten me up. Since her passing, the food has not always been that tempting, though Gil does his best. He turned, saw her, and tipped his hat in silent greeting. Hadn’t he recognized her? She’d done her best to describe herself in her letters, but it had proven difficult.

Medium height. Light brown hair. Green eyes that too often brought comments. But she was who she was.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 7b6deccf65d4ee89
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 3,295,716 bytes (3.143 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 163
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 263.64 minutes
• Total Words: 52,728
• Total Characters: 286,673
• Average Words per Page: 323.48
• Average Characters per Page: 1758.73

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